Don't fuck with this senator! - Senator Steven Armstrong
Everyone at some point in their gaming careers has heard about Metal Gear, Amazing series of games created by the nothing short of a genius Hideo Kojima, his games are renowned across all circles as masterpieces due to their stories, their cinematic presence and the impact each game released by Kojima Works leaves on the whole gaming community as a whole and Metal Gear Rising (Revengeance, is that even a word? I'm going to just call it Metal Gear Rising) is no exception to the whole line of amazing games released by him and his team.
Metal Gear Rising holds a special place on the Metal Gear Franchise since it was developed by a third party, Platinum Games but it was approved by Hideo Kojima, after a heavy redesign the game had to go through on its early development phases, Kojima himself said 'I didn't think we'd have it go this well' when asked about what he thought about the game and if he liked it!
Even though Kojima approves of the game, some fans don't like it and go around claiming that it isn't part of the canon of the series and that the real canon ended with Metal Gear Solid IV but I guess we will never know this, at least for now because Kojima hasn't managed to recover the rights of the franchise from Konami.
> Is your cause just, or is that just what you tell yourself? - Samuel Rodrigues
Samuel Rodrigues better known as Jetstream Sam comes in as a close second in the list of my favorite villains for this game, the battles of wit and honor he has with Raiden multiple times across the game earn him a spot in at least my top 5 favorite villains of the whole franchise but Senator Armstrong manages to push ahead by just a bit and win but it wouldn't be right to talk about the villains in this game and not talk about Jetstream Sam. In my opinion even though the position the game puts you in as the main character makes you see Samuel as an antagonist from the very beginning, I would like to disagree, He's just another mercenary, just like you working for a different company with a different cause in his life, most of the characters in the game can't really be defined into the good/evil category since even the protagonist of Raiden has done atrocious things in the past and is looking to redeem himself.
You should try fighting for what you believe in sometime, Jack. Not for a company, or for a nation, or for anyone else - Senator Armstrong
For me what all of this comes down to is for the search of purpose and meaning in your actions, for obvious reasons I won't spoil the game for those that haven't played it yet (You really should and since this is considered to be a "spin-off" you don't really need to have much knowledge of the other entries in the series)
But for Senator Armstrong what it comes down to is the meaning and legacy of his career, He's just another man looking to do what's best for his country, which is in a very deep economical recession and he believes he has found a way to save it and decides to act on it, no matter what it takes and he's willing to do everything to achieve his goals, is he right? I'm not one to judge here, but in the end for someone to win someone else probably has to lose and he already knows who the losers will be...
Of course those are sort of the ideological reasons he would be a "villain" I would love to fight again but his in game fight is also insane, again I don't want to go into spoiler territories here but his fight consist of 3 phases and in one of them you face him while he is inside a giant Metal Gear! The epicness of this fight not only comes from the giant robot of course, the whole fight is like a short movie, it last a bit over 35 minutes in total with the classic long Kojima speeches in between battles and phases, truly making it not only an amazing gameplay/story experience but also a cinematic experience that only the likes of Kojima could bring into a game!
The game was developed thinking about consoles first and PCs later and its a 2013 game but I bet that if they remade this game in 2018 with the current generation of consoles and computers it would be even better! Hopefully he eventually manages to recover the rights of the Metal Gear series from Konami, I always wanted a sequel for this game.
All that talk about justice... and here I am, just another killer... - Raiden
This post was written as an entry for an Archdruid community contest! You should consider joining too if you have a villain you would like to face again too!